Virtualization/Standards

The Abstracts

Virtualization I - What, Why, Where and How?

Rob PeglarDownload

 

Storage Virtualization is one of the buzzwords in the industry, especially with the near-ubiquitous deployment of Storage Networks.But besides all hype, there is a lot of confusion, too. Companies are using the term virtualization and its characteristics in various and different forms. This tutorial describes the reasons and benefits of virtualization in a technical and neutral way. The audience will understand the various terms and will receive a clear picture of the different virtualization approaches. Links to the SNIA Shared Storage Model and the usage of the new SNIA Storage Virtualization Taxonomy will help to achieve this goal. This tutorial is intended for IT Managers, Storage and System Administrators who have responsibilities for IT infrastructures and storage management tasks.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the definition of storage virtualization and its taxonomy
• Learn about the three categories/methods of storage virtualization and their architectures
• Understand which storage virtualization techniques apply to various new and existing infrastructures and potential benefits to storage management

Storage Virtualization II - Effective Use of Virtualization

Rob PeglarDownload

 

The second part of this tutorial builds on the first one, so the audience should have visited part I or already should have a basic understanding of this subject. Storage Virtualization part II covers practical issues of block virtualization in order to make most effective use of it. Among other topics it describes the implementation step by step and aspects of availability, performance and capacity improvements. The material discusses the role of storage virtualization within policy-based management and describes its integration in the SNIA Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S).

Learning Objectives

• Understand the role of virtualization in improving storage availability, performance and capacity management
• Learn about potential policy-based management using virtual techniques
• Understand how storage virtualization fits into the SNIA SMI-S and Web Services (SOA) architectures

Server Virtualization and Storage Disaster Recovery

Ray LucchesiDownload

 

Server virtualization demands increasingly sophisticated storage subsystems. To support disaster recovery (DR) in virtual server environments storage admins need to understand how I/O and storage layouts in these environments differ from non-virtualized server storage.In addition, some server virtualization systems in order to automate DR can make use of special storage subsystem capabilities unique to these environments.The tutorial will describe the unique server virtualization I/O and storage layout requirements as well as to discuss some DR storage considerations under these environments. DR in server virtualization environments requires re-thinking some of the DR-storage assumptions that have worked in past environments. Also, new server virtualization software and other tools are becoming available to held automate the DR processes. The extent of DR automation provided by these tools depends on storage subsystem capabilities. When and where to use these tools will be discussed.

Learning Objectives

• Understand how server virtualization impacts storage array disaster recovery.
• How to configure server virtualization and storage subsystems to better support DR.
• When and where to use server virtualization automation to support storage DR.

SMI-S: Building the Case for a Standard

Paul von Behren Download

 

This tutorial describes how the SMI-S standard benefits the three primary players in storage management solutions end users, vendors of storage products, and application (such as SRM) vendors. Standards-based solutions help end-users avoid vendor lock-in, provide choices in storage management applications, and eliminating the cost of vendor-specific agent infrastructures.Vendors of storage products benefit by gaining application support with little or no vendor-specific development costs.Application vendors benefit by gaining storage support with little or no vendor-specific development costs.This tutorial also looks at innovative solutions that can exploit a standards-based infrastructure such as SMI-S for example, Management Frameworks. This tutorial also talks about the past and future evolution of SMI-S; how the standard started by providing basic storage networking management tasks, adding more functionality and increasing the scope to meet the requirements of end-users and storage vendors, and plans for the future.

Learning Objectives

• How end users, storage vendors, and application vendors benefit from use of a standard such as SMI-S
• How the SMI-S standard has evolved to meet requirements and objectives of its stakeholders

eXtensible Access Method (XAM) - A New Fixed Content API

Mark CarlsonDownload

 

XAM is a new interoperable interface for accessing fixed content storage. X AM Provides:Interoperability: Applications can work with any XAM conformant storage system; information can be migrated and shared,Compliance:Integrated record retention and disposition metadata,ILM Practices:Framework for classification, policy, and implementationMigration: Ability to automate migration process to maintain long-term readability Discovery: Application-independent structured discovery avoids application obsolescence.

Learning Objectives

• For Storage Vendors: what is needed to implement a XAM interface (VIM) to their products,
• For Application Vendors: what it means to have a standard interface for supporting any fixed content storage device.
• For End Users: the value of vendor choice in fixed content applications and storage devices.

Storage and Virtualization:  Five Best Practices to Ensure Success

Mike MatchettDownload

 

Today the data center environments are getting increasingly complex with virtualization at all layers of IT stack, including network, server, SAN and storage. IT professionals are often challenged in diagnosing application performance issues, optimizing

Learning Objectives

• Best practices for managing virtualized data center environments
• Agent-less discovery vs. agent-based discovery
• Benefit of SMI-S support